March 25, 2012
The 5th Sunday of Lent
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

As we began our worship this morning with a reading from the prophet Jeremiah, we heard God offer a sweeping promise. <em>I will put my law within you, and I will write it on your hearts. No longer will you teach one another, for you shall all know me, from the least of you to the greatest. </em>

God says, in effect, that you will be beyond any need for further striving. What is external will become so internalized that you will live God’s ways without having to think about it. No need for more understanding; no artificial effort to be good; only an integrated faith that comes from truly knowing God. As Jesus put it to the woman at the well, <em>Out of your heart will flow a spring of living water.</em>

I suspect most Christians think of this promise as only pertaining to the afterlife, to heaven.  Many even go so far as to say that we can’t even taste God’s promise of fulfillment in this life, because we’re completely dominated by sin. As we slog through this wicked world, all we have is repentance and a hope for pie in the sky in the sweet by and by. That’s not my experience.

The Christian faith is not just a preview of another world. The gospel is directed towards this human life. It tells stories of fathers forgiving prodigal sons, healing and feeding, and great acts of generosity and self-sacrifice. It is practical, do-able. Jesus always pointed to this life, this human plane, and went so far as to say that we can become as he is. <em>You shall know God, and out of your heart will flow a spring of living water. </em>

Nobody said it would be easy. It isn’t automatic, as if belief inevitably translates into holiness of life. But it is possible. And there are tried-and-true pathways that many have used successfully before us. One, obviously, is a life of prayer. Another is immersion in sacrament, fellowship, and scripture. There is always study, and service. All of these pathways help us to write God’s ways upon our hearts.

But there is another tried-and-true pathway towards a truly integrated faith that we’re less likely to embrace. And yet it is the one that the gospel, the scriptures, and the saints always point to. It is the path of suffering. We are even told that suffering is at the heart of the matter.

Beginning with Palm Sunday next week, we reach the climax of our liturgical year. Everything in Jesus’ life and ministry culminates in the terrible and miraculous events of that week in Jerusalem. The second reading told us today that in that week, Jesus “was made perfect” through his suffering.

In the gospel today, Jesus is coming to terms with this fact. He looks ahead to what is going to happen and calls it his “glorification.” He speaks of grains of wheat that die but in doing so, bear much fruit. And then he turns to his friends and says that they, too, must come to terms with suffering. Those who love their life too much, those who try to avoid suffering, will lose true life.

Jesus’ heart was troubled. But he knew that he now stood before the gate to eternal life. For he understood what every spiritual teacher has ever taught - that suffering can be spiritually transformative, even though naturally, we would rather avoid it. The cross opens to the resurrection.

For millennia, humankind has pondered the events of Holy Week. I think this is because somewhere inside we intuit what Jesus understood - that suffering can perfect us, too; that God  in us may well be glorified through our suffering.  So let’s consider how this might be true.

What comes to mind first is what can happen in times of crisis. Right now several of our members are facing painful or frightening crises in their lives. We look at what is happening to them, shake our heads, and say “I don’t know how they do it.” They don’t either. But what they sometimes learn, and what we sometimes learn when things fall apart, is what really matters. This is always liberating, and it helps us to know God.

Now I haven’t suffered as some of you have, or anywhere near what many others in this world have to endure every day. But there have been dark times when I was lost or abused, times when I had no power to control or change myself or my circumstances. In each one of these times, as I was stripped down, a new person emerged - a stronger, clearer, even happier person. God’s ways were more firmly engraved upon my heart.

Suffering can also awaken us when we risk being in relationship with those who suffer more than we do. Some of you do this every week through our Food Pantry, or by taking communion to people in nursing homes, or by volunteering at St. Martin’s center for the homeless. Some of you work in your job every day with children or adults whose situations are heartbreaking. Or you may be in a close relationship with a friend or relative who is going through a very hard time, just being present and offering your love.  

When we put ourselves in proximity to others who suffer more than we do, it tends to soften our heart. We see the complexity and fragility of things. We become less sure of what we think we know, or of how secure we imagine ourselves to be. But for a person of faith, rather than frighten us, this can free us.

For it can free us from our delusions about control, from our separateness as a person who has it together, from our rigid convictions about how other people should live. It can bring us into the human family, where we share one another’s burdens and know that we, too, will need the friendship of others when it is our turn to fall. And that kind of friendship is one way of knowing the God who lives between us.

But suffering can also be less obvious than personal crises and the sharing of hard times. It is also, more subtly, a part of everyday life. Maybe you have a happy-go-lucky persona. Some people appear to be that way, but in my experience, once you get past the smile and get to know them, even they live with some kind of anxiety, some kind of shadow. We all do.

We want things we can’t have. We worry about things we did or didn’t do, and we conjure up unsettling scenarios of the future. <em>Will I get this done on time? Will it be right? Did I say the wrong thing? I’m such an idiot. Do I have to spend another minute with this tiresome person? Why are others so disappointing? I’m so angry. Why can’t I be fully present to this beautiful day? I don’t feel good; what a drag...(sigh)...When shall I be released from this petty, nagging distress? </em>

Most consider this sort of everyday, low level of suffering to be inevitable. And so to temporarily lift our spirits, we distract ourselves with soul-numbing entertainment or self-medication. But the spiritual life suggests a different approach. It points us back into the suffering itself, saying that this thing we’d rather avoid is, in fact, the gate of heaven. This is the cross that leads to resurrection.

Pointing ourselves back into our distress is the same, whether it is petty or truly disturbing. It can be done in the safety of prayer, where we allow the suffering to be there, physically, emotionally, in the presence of God. As we breathe through it with God, we discover that it has less power than we thought, and that at least some of our distress is manufactured by our thoughts and fears about it.

Whenever we can bring awareness to our suffering, we can also release our grip on it. We can stop our mental scurrying to control or change it, and offer it to God as it is. We can trust that this, too, shall pass. And in this releasing and trusting and seeing its transience, we settle down and return to the fulness that surrounds us on every side. We remember that in God, all shall be well.

Whether we suffer in crisis, in empathy with another, or in the everyday struggle of being human, when we stop fighting or avoiding it and let it in, it has a way of transforming us. It simplifies and clarifies us. It softens our heart and makes us more human. And it settles us down in the miraculous present with God.

God said <em>I will put my law within you, and I will write it on your hearts. You shall all know me. Out of your heart will flow a spring of living water.</em>

These are not empty promises. Nor are they mere previews of the afterlife. What God is saying is possible. There are many roads that lead there, but the one we mustn’t avoid is the path of suffering. It may be the most direct route.

March 18, 2012
The 4th Sunday of Lent
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor
Rebellion and Redemption

Today is one of those times when the readings call for more exploration than we’ve got time for in a sermon. We’ve got God killing complainers in the desert with poisonous snakes, and a magically healing bronze serpent on a pole. Paul says that following the desires of the flesh makes us children of wrath. And then there’s Jesus condemning those who don’t believe in him. I feel like a commentator after a Presidential primary debate. I don’t even know where to start.

For now, suffice it to say that the authors of scripture, including the gospel of John, were usually on to something true. But as they grappled with the mystery of God, they were limited in their understanding, and fell back on conventional misconceptions of their day: that God punishes, that sensual pleasure is bad; that there is only one path to truth. Nevertheless, underneath all this, they were on to something. So what were they on to in today’s readings?

All three of them tell stories of rebellion and redemption. This is a universal, human theme, and one that is worthy of reflection in this season of Lent. We all have a tendency to rebel against what is good for us and for those whose lives we touch. We betray our own best nature. But God is always ready to help us return to reality, to the center. We rebel and God redeems.

Moses had led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, and now they were wandering as nomads, living off their wits, in a very dangerous land. They had been asked to go on this desperate journey completely on faith, with no guarantees. And they went, trusting in God, trusting in Moses, trusting that anything would be better than slavery.

But eventually, in the blistering heat of the Sinai, after watching their children bitten by deadly snakes, their trust faltered. They rebelled against what was ultimately the right thing - to keep on going, in faith. And yet even in their rebellion, God did not abandon them. God provided healing and encouragement to move forward through the wilderness. That’s the main point here.

Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, reminding them that they, too, were once rebellious, and had been redeemed. Paul likes to point to sexual misbehavior, but he could be speaking about anything. Once you were as good as dead, he says, living unconsciously, jerked around by what you wanted and what you feared, like selfish brutes.

But even when you were dead, Paul says, God made made you alive again. Now you are called to a higher way, to wisdom and love, and to good works. Paul encourages them to remain sane, to not go back to their former way of life. As it is put so graphically in both Proverbs and the 2nd letter of Peter, Don’t be like a dog that returns to its own vomit.

And in the gospel, the sometimes over-the-top Gospel of John, Jesus also speaks of rebellion and redemption. For even though God had come into the world, people loved darkness rather than light. And yet, the gospel of John also says that God so loves the world, that in spite of this, God enters into our darkness, as light.
 
So these are our stories, stories tainted by conventional misconceptions, perhaps, but underneath that, true stories about our humanity. We rebel against what is good for us and others whom we affect. We betray our true nature. We love our darkness, and sometimes we’re as good as dead. But this is never the end of the story. God comes to us, in spite of all this, and helps us make our journey to spiritual sanity.

How is it that this story unfolds in our lives? Why is it that we tend to rebel, and how is it that redemption happens?

We are, I believe, born good. The extreme Calvinists have it wrong: we’re not born into total depravity, irrevocably stained by sin. We are children of God, with a soul that wants to face into the light. We naturally want to love and trust, and to delight in this wondrous world. The face of any baby will tell you this.

But we’re affected by the broken world into which we are born. We’re hurt, some of us much worse than others, and confused by what happens. So out of an instinct for survival, we twist ourselves away from the light. We use whatever we think will work - anger, we hide, we play it safe, we lash out, we use drugs or alcohol, we try to be perfect. Whatever we use, it seems to be effective, so we keep doing it.

This begins before we know what we are doing, but at some point it becomes a choice. It becomes a habit to rebel against our true self, against our God-given nature. There is a part of us that loves our bad habits - we, too love the darkness rather than the light -  because we believe that what we are doing will continue to help us survive, to give us what we need. We’re like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, who clings to his Precious - but soul-killing - ring.

But at some point we might become self-aware. We see that it isn’t working. And with courage, we begin the long journey back to our true nature. Here is where redemption begins, when we decide to stop rebelling, to return to the person that we were when God created us. But we cannot accomplish redemption on our own - we’re too habituated to our rebellious ways.

God doesn’t wait for us to get it together, but comes as an invisible force that enters into us, working with us.  God so loves you, that God comes into your darkness as light - even while you are still grumbling in the desert, even when you still love your darkness, even when you are as good as dead, - God sneaks in, and starts working with whatever willingness you’ve got, in order to make our efforts effective.

Our part in this process, our willingness, is often portrayed in the Bible as obedience. We don’t like this word. It suggests to us hanging our head down low, buckling under, and doing our duty.

You may prefer other words, like commitment, diligence, conscientiousness, discipline: without which we will never progress. In applying ourselves in these ways, we obey -  we aim ourselves towards grace, and we keep going. That’s obedience, and that’s what the season of Lent is all about.

But as St. Benedict said, the life of a monk ought to be a continuous Lent. The life of someone who is serious about redemption will be a continuous Lent. This is not to suggest some dismal, joyless existence of unending duty. It speaks instead to the need for continual diligence in the journey of faith. Like the Israelites in the desert, the only way forward is to keep on keeping on.

Spiritual diligence has been described as removing the dust that covers the mirror of the soul, every time we notice that it has accumulated. An angry thought arises, and we dust the mirror. Fear of the future comes, and we dust. Impatience, resentment, greed, hatred, sloth, distrust - all dust. And every time we remove it, we rediscover what already lies beneath - the soul, as a mirror, reflecting God’s glory. As a favorite spiritual writer of mine put it:

When we resume our original nature and incessantly make our effort from this base, we will appreciate the result of our effort moment after moment, day after day, year after year. This is how we should appreciate our life. Those who are attached only to the result of their effort will not have any chance to appreciate it, because the result will never come. But if moment by moment your effort arises from its pure origin, all you do will be good, and you will be satisfied with whatever you do.

Here is the great paradox. We are already redeemed, but we must learn to live into that redemption. The Israelites were already in the Promised Land, out there in the desert, because God was already with them. But they had to keep on journeying until they understood that.

So continue your Lenten journey with conscientiousness, wiping the mirror of your soul every time you notice that dust has accumulated. Come out of your pointless rebellion and be obedient to the person that you really are, to the person God created you to be.

But do so with a light spirit, and with confidence. There is no judgment, only love. As you do your part, God is invisibly moving into your dark places, in order to make your effort successful. And remember that as this wonderful work of redemption takes place, you are only becoming what you already are, and will be, forever.

We're sorry, the full text for this sermon is not available at this time.

March 4, 2012    
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor
Deny Yourself

I feel for Peter in this gospel story. He is like every close associate of those in danger of being martyred. I’m sure that friends of Martin Luther King, Archbishop Oscar Romero, and Gandhi were all horrified when their beloved leader, like Jesus, said “They’re going to kill me.”

Jesus and Martin and Oscar and the Mahatma knew that they had crossed a line somewhere along the way, without knowing exactly when. There was an inevitability to their martyrdom. And they accepted it. They would keep on going, and give their life for their cause.

It was from this place of complete commitment that Jesus spoke to his followers in today’s gospel. “If you want to be my disciple, you’ll have to deny your life and take up your own cross. Fair warning: If you keep going, you too will lose your life for the sake of this business we’re involved in.” And this saying was told later, by the early church, when the persecutions began, when they really did have to choose whether to keep on going and cross that line.

Christian martyrdom is rare these days, but it still goes on - in the Sudan, in India, and in decades past, throughout Latin America. I also think of those in Syria today, who have chosen to continue their pressure on the government, no matter what. They still hold public funerals, even though soldiers fire upon them. They still go out into the streets and demand democracy and an end to repression, even though they will be identified by secret government agents in the crowd, taken that night from their beds, and tortured for months on end.

For martyrs of a cause, today’s gospel becomes, for them, literal: they deny themselves, take up their cross, and lose their life for a higher purpose.

We can also see the gospel of self-denial in those who give their lives in the service of others. I think here of prison chaplains, social workers, teachers in poor schools. I think of those who care for elderly parents or disabled siblings in their homes. I think of young parents, whose life, for a time, is not their own.

Some of you deny yourselves for the sake of compassion or love. You empty yourselves, and allow yourselves to be used as a vehicle for God’s grace. And you might discover, in doing so, that you have found your purpose, your true life. You might have found that whatever you sacrificed - free time, money, the pursuit of personal interests - pales by comparison to what you gain from giving yourself away. As Jesus said, “Those who lose their life for the sake of the gospel will find it.”

But what about the rest of us? We may not be giving our time to care for someone; we may not be called to a sacrificial vocation; we’re not going to be martyrs of the faith. What then does Jesus, in this gospel, have to say to us? Hear it again.

If you want to become my follower, deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. If you try to save your life, you will lose it. So be careful - for what will it profit you to gain the whole world and forfeit your soul? But if you lose your life for my sake, you will save it.

In addition to its obvious applications I’ve spoken of, this passage also speaks to the very heart of the spiritual life. It says that the path to fulfillment is found, paradoxically, in self-emptying.

The world around us tells us that the path to happiness is about self-filling: doing what we want, getting what we want, working things out the way we want them to be, being the person we want to be. This is what defines a “successful life.” We are inundated with this message from every side, at all times.

Live the American Dream! Own a nice house, fill your spacious closet with beautiful clothes, travel to exotic destinations, eat at the finest restaurants. Be attractive and engaging, and you’ll have true love. Work hard and you’ll have a great job. Exercise, watch your diet, meditate, get a little therapy and some medication, stay positive, and you will avoid disease, stress, depression, suffering, and maybe even death!

That’s the point, isn’t it? Getting what we want? Having things work out well for us? Building a self, a good and happy and successful life?

Well, I strive towards the things I want just as much as anyone. It’s natural. I’ve got preferences, things I try to accomplish. But if that’s the purpose of our life, if that’s where we place our trust, if we think that by getting what we want and avoiding what we don’t want, we will attain the fulfillment of our purpose, then we will be sorely disappointed. In the effort to gain the world, we may even lose our souls. We will have climbed the ladder and discovered there’s nothing at the top.

Here’s the problem. There’s always a fly in the ointment. We’ll get sick and we’ll lose people we love. Some of our dreams will fail. Even our pleasures and successes contain a shadow of disappointment, because deep down, we know they won’t last. Nothing other than God has any  permanence, and we can’t control everything.  And so by trying in vain to craft reality to fit the desires of the self, we allow ourselves to be jerked around by the circumstances of life, and we make ourselves miserable.
 
By contrast, self-denial can be the simple but very profound act of accepting what comes, pleasant or unpleasant, smooth or difficult - things that may not be our preference. By letting go of our insistence that life be the way we want it to be, by backing off the effort to always bend it towards our purposes, we deny the demands of the self. And in the process, we open to what is, which always has within it the seed of abundant life.

We get sick, maybe terminally. Our marriage ends. One of our children turn against us. If one of these happen, is it a bitter thing that shouldn’t be, an enemy to be conquered? Or can we somehow welcome even this, and learn what this twist in life’s journey has to teach us? Can we become curious and open to the intense energy that now flows through our days?

Less dramatically, we get into a fender-bender at rush hour. We get overwhelmed by worries and too many demands on our time. Or we don’t want to go and do what our calendar tells us we must do. What does self-denial look like then?

It is in the simple but profound act of letting go. Let things be what they are. Don’t grasp, and don’t push away. Breathe, open your heart, let it wash through. The sun is still shining. A snatch of some tune is heard from a passing car radio. God still is.

We will always have our preferences, and we will always make choices that support those preferences. We will always want various goods and favorable circumstances, and even get some of them, if we’re fortunate. We will always have a sense of self. But our problem comes in attaching to these things, as if they could last or provide us something that only God can provide. We are only pilgrims, traveling through this world of impermanence.

As St. Paul says, Let those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no possessions, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.

When we approach our lives this way, the life energy, the inherent goodness in whatever is, always reveals itself to us. Out of this self-denial, this death to self, a strange resurrection happens, a new life that is not of our own making. Like the resurrected Christ on the road to Emmaus, it is not recognizable at first. But it reveals itself to be abundant life, as Jesus promised. Life is even more beautiful when we let it be itself.

Thomas Merton said, At any moment we can break through to the underlying unity that is God’s gift to us in Christ. At any moment, God is always there, the ground of all being. We scurry around on top of this ground, building a little empire of the self, and it all crumbles, eventually. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Nothing lasts, and we cannot control things so that we have a perfect little life. We will eventually lose everything we create, even our constructed self. So why not surrender it now?

For those who lose their life for God’s sake will find it.